Thursday 12 July 2012
Spike Lee working on Michael Jackson film
Spike Lee has revealed he
is close to finishing a Michael Jackson documentary marking the 25th
anniversary of the singer's Bad album.
The director said the footage to which he was given access was a "treasure chest of findings"."We have footage in this documentary that no one's ever seen - stuff that Michael shot himself and behind the scenes stuff," he said.
The film is due to be released later this year.
It tells the story behind the 1987 album, the record-breaking world tour it led to and the short film music videos it spawned.
These include the video promo for the title track, directed by Martin Scorsese and featuring the actor Wesley Snipes.
"We had complete access to the vaults of Michael Jackson," Lee said. "He wrote 60 demos for the Bad record. Only 11 made it.
"We got to hear a lot of that stuff, too, so it was just a great experience."
The documentary features 40 interviews Lee conducted with Jackson's confidants, choreographers, musicians and other collaborators.
He also includes interviews with Kanye West, Mariah Carey and Sheryl Crow - who was a backup singer on the Bad tour - about the album's lasting influence.
"We really divided it into two things," Lee said. "Artists today who were influenced by Michael, and then people who worked side by side [with him]."
Besides Jackson's artistry, Lee said the documentary would show a more personal side of the singer who died in 2009.
"He had a great sense of humour, and he was funny," he said. "You'll see a lot of that stuff.
"I'm more than just a huge fan of Michael Jackson. Having the chance to actually know him and work with him, I deeply care about his legacy."
The 25th anniversary re-issue of Bad, titled Bad 25, will be released on 18 September.
@'BBC'
NPR's 75th birthday present to Philip Glass
o honor Philip Glass' 75th birthday this year, we here at NPR Music commissioned Glass to create a short work that would be great fun for amateur and professional singers alike. A big part of what we do is to try to make all kinds of music engaging and accessible — and wouldn't it be great to invite anyone who wanted to come and sing in a world premiere by one of the most celebrated composers of our time?
So Glass took a work he had first written for soprano and instruments as part of his 1997 3-D "digital opera" Monsters of Grace, and arranged it for soloist and eight-part chorus. And were very lucky indeed to team up with the Make Music NY Festival, member station WQXR and the Times Square Alliance to realize this project at one of the world's most iconic spots, the Crossroads of the World, Times Square.
About 200 singers gathered to sing with the ebullient Kent Tritle, one of America's most accomplished and beloved choral conductors, and soprano soloist Rachel Rosales. (And a handful of singers were folks who had simply been walking by and were swept up in the moment.)
On this sweltering day, the singers' mindful intention to gather in Times Square and its visceral result — all breath and sweat and palpable effort in the middle of glossy Times Square, with stifling heat, noise and a zillion blinking distractions — was just amazing and honestly quite moving.
For his text, Glass selected words from the medieval Sufi Muslim poet Jalaluddin Rumi, as translated by Coleman Barks. In his poetry, Rumi urges the reader to break free of the constraints of daily life — to upend expectations and jettison traditional thinking in an unending quest to unite with the divine. "Here's the new rule," Rumi wrote. "Break the wineglass, and fall towards the glassblower's breath." And somehow — beautifully, magically and only briefly — this fleeting chorus became the heartbeat of Times Square
So Glass took a work he had first written for soprano and instruments as part of his 1997 3-D "digital opera" Monsters of Grace, and arranged it for soloist and eight-part chorus. And were very lucky indeed to team up with the Make Music NY Festival, member station WQXR and the Times Square Alliance to realize this project at one of the world's most iconic spots, the Crossroads of the World, Times Square.
About 200 singers gathered to sing with the ebullient Kent Tritle, one of America's most accomplished and beloved choral conductors, and soprano soloist Rachel Rosales. (And a handful of singers were folks who had simply been walking by and were swept up in the moment.)
On this sweltering day, the singers' mindful intention to gather in Times Square and its visceral result — all breath and sweat and palpable effort in the middle of glossy Times Square, with stifling heat, noise and a zillion blinking distractions — was just amazing and honestly quite moving.
For his text, Glass selected words from the medieval Sufi Muslim poet Jalaluddin Rumi, as translated by Coleman Barks. In his poetry, Rumi urges the reader to break free of the constraints of daily life — to upend expectations and jettison traditional thinking in an unending quest to unite with the divine. "Here's the new rule," Rumi wrote. "Break the wineglass, and fall towards the glassblower's breath." And somehow — beautifully, magically and only briefly — this fleeting chorus became the heartbeat of Times Square
William S Burroughs and Brion Gysin recordings released
The CD also includes 1960s recordings of Gysin performing his permutated poems, plus home recordings made in Paris by Burroughs and Gysin in 1970. More details here, and download extracts here and here.
Via
'Unleashed In The East' - Petter Hegre In Tokyo (NSFW)
This summary is not available. Please
click here to view the post.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
